PRESS RELEASE: HOLLYWOOD IS DEAD 80’s FLASHBACK!

DETROIT, MI — Artist Matt Busch is about to unveil the fifth incarnation of Hollywood-is-Dead, a collection of hand-painted, re-imagined movie posters with a zombie twist.  This time around, the series will focus on 10 new blockbusters that defined the 80′s, like The Terminator (The Termin Ate Her), Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (Ferris Bueller’s Day of the Dead) and The Breakfast Club (The Breakfast Clump).  ”This set of posters was really fun to work on,” comments Busch, “not just because I was an 80′s kid, but because movies had a magic back then that’s rarely seen today.”

Busch first made waves with his undead parodies in 2009 with Zombie Wars (a project authorized by Lucasfilm) re-imagining all 6 Star Wars movie posters with his decrepit vision. Since the original media frenzy, Busch conceived a larger project and the outbreak expanded into an Online gallery at Hollywood-is-Dead.com. The current collection has over 60 posters, including Edward Scissorhands (Deadward Scissorhands), Toy Story (Toy Gory) and Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Breakfast is Tiffany).

For this 80′s series of zombified posters, Busch has returned to the roots that started it all; Star Wars.  Busch explains, “When I illustrated the original set, for Return of the Jedi, I chose to parody Drew Struzan’s advance poster, which at the time was still called Revenge of the Jedi.”  Since then, Fans have been demanding that Busch re-create the more familiar one-sheet design that was illustrated by Kazuhiko Sano. “Now, one will have the option of collecting a version that’s more of a montage.  Together they tell a morbid story, and this completes the saga.”

The other Star Wars film that happened to be released in the 80′s, The Empire Strikes Back, is a fan favorite.  The Hollywood-is-Dead version, The Living Dead Strikes Back, is no exception, featuring a zombified Han Solo projecting blood vomit onto an eagerly-awaiting zombie Princess Leia.  To commemorate, Busch is re-releasing the poster as a larger, full movie-poster-size print.  Also coming to light this summer are vast 80′s classics like National Lampoon’s European Vacation (National Disaster’s European Vaccination), Prince’s Purple Rain (Prance’s Purple Pain) and The Lost Boys (The Last Boys).
Beginning Monday, June 18th, Busch will debut a new poster each weekday in the Hollywood-is-Dead gallery, through the rest of the month. In addition to the posters, Busch has recently struck a licensing deal with Fright-Rags, Inc. to produce high quality full color shirts based on the zombified parodies. One the horizon, a coffee table book is in development, as well as a board game. The Hollywood-is-Dead original paintings are currently exhibited in the ArtInsights Animation and Film Art Gallery in Reston, Virginia. Gallery owner Leslie Combemale states, “Yes, these images are over-the-top, but they are also a love note from Matt to the original artists who created these classics and to the dying art used to make great movie posters.”